


Disarm Me

by Kei_LS



Category: DCU (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Dissociation from physical pain, F/M, I may never know, Insomnia, Jason has a lot of problems, Kory or Kori?, M/M, Messy headspaces, Multi, Open Relationships, Some of those problems crop up in weird ways, Threesome - F/M/M, minor edits but mostly unchanged, sort of, this story is more Roy and Jason than Kori
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-21
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-09 18:57:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6919192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kei_LS/pseuds/Kei_LS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason’s been gone a month after being offered something by Roy he can’t readily accept. Roy’s… sick of waiting. And hoping. Kori doesn’t have time for this shit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Locate

“ _You!”_ Roy hisses, furious and red-faced as he glares pitifully at Jason from where he hangs, suspended in basically the middle of the room, via an assortment of wires and metal clamps that blend perfectly with the high shadows of this particular establishment. Jason had chosen it because it fit his mood and there were no less than fifteen smaller portions hidden within the walls, ceiling, and floor for him to crawl into and either stash stuff or brood or curl into when he couldn’t safely fight off sleep anymore.

 

“Wow.” Jason remarks. He looks like a bondage special which, okay, Jason didn’t really stop to consider that when he’d set up the traps. Wouldn’t be considering it _now_ except that…well, except that it’s Roy Harper dangling like some kind of half-willing offering and Jason’s head always seems to kick into overdrive when the archer is around. He figures it’s probably because he has to make up for the guy’s lack of brain cells.

_It’s probably a bad sign that he lets the zombie do his thinking_ , Jason notes absently. (It’s these kind of throw-away thoughts that Jason never voices, not because he doesn’t believe them but because Roy makes them a big fucking deal.) Roy makes a lot of things a big fucking deal.

_“No! Don’t – goddammit,”_ Roy is writhing in mid-air, cursing and hissing in unequal parts frustration and pain. On anyone else, the pain would win out, but Arsenal is a stubborn bastard. It doesn’t stop Jason from hearing the choked back gasps of pain, but it does stop him from his trek to the kitchen.

 

“You should stop doing that if you want to keep circulation. And, y’know…breathing.” There’s a very thin wire around his neck, and it hasn’t cut the skin yet but if Roy keeps thrashing like a demented raccoon there might be blood. _Well, more blood_ , Jason amends as he glances at his own bloody fingertips. His gloves haven’t started making sticky noises yet but he can feel the warmth. It’s a little gross.

 

“Yeah? Then stop fucking _walking away – hey!_ ” Jason sighs tiredly and throws Roy a look over his shoulder, dimming down the faint feeling of concern and pushing his annoyance and exhaustion up. Roy falls still, reluctantly, but he does it. _You’re still too easy_.

 

“Relax idiot, I’m getting some wire cutters.” There’s a dull _thunk_ and Jason looks closer, feeling a faint jolt of surprise at the heavy weight that had been carefully wedged into wood to hold some of the thicker cords in place instead on the ground. “And maybe a blow torch.”

 

That was one of the traps he’d laid for entrances through the ceiling, and the one holding Roy’s arm up and back at a slightly awkward angle was one of the window cords. He followed it with a twinge of suspicion back to the window and looked up. “Did – did you set off _every_ trap I have?”

 

“No. Maybe. Okay, yes, but only the non-lethal ones and don’t act like you’re anything but grateful.” He didn’t intend to actually sigh but he was seriously too tired for this shit.

 

“Roy. Why the hell would I be grateful that you set off _all_ of my perimeter traps? Do you even _know_ how much of a pain in the ass all of those were to set up? The answer is no because you are the _least_ careful bastard I know. _Dick_ is more careful than you.” He stressed, resuming his determined march to his kitchen area and rifling through the middle drawers.

 

“Okay – first off? This isn’t careful, this is paranoia. Shut up. I know you. There’s a difference between _you_ and the _rest of the world_. Dick doesn’t get a free pass either because every one of them is just as bad. Secondly, you are super grateful because now that I’ve set them off you know they work.” He almost sounds proud.

 

“Of course they work. I set them up.” Jason deadpans. Just in case Roy thinks that maybe he contracted someone else to do this shit.

 

“Yeah – no, that’s not good enough. I know you idiot – ”

 

“Really, I’m the idiot,” Jason huffs.

 

“– And if I hadn’t set these off eventually your paranoia would’ve gotten so out of hand you’d have tested it on some wild life creature.”

 

“Roy the only wild creature I test my traps on is you. On account that you’re kind of an idiot and you have a horrible habit of trying and failing to break into my shit.”

 

“I only pretend to do that so you know your traps work!” he defended. He had the balls to look indignant, and not a little offended. Jason might have brandished his largest pair of wire cutters in a slightly menacing way in response. Roy grimaced.

 

“Mm, why are you here other than to apparently sabotage all of my hard work?” he asked idly.

 

“ _You!”_ Roy hissed again. Jason raised a single eyebrow, sardonic tilt to his head and lips in a cover for the churning of his gut.

 

“Should I be flattered or is this the part where I tase you and get the hell out of dodge?” _Again_. Roy gives him a truly filthy look. Jason’s kind of impressed.

 

“It’s been an entire month Jason.” He says it quietly, like there’s a whole world of wisdom in the single statement. Considering everything Jason refuses to say, refused to talk about before he left, there kind of is.

 

“Don’t tell me you’ve been waiting like a love-sick fool this entire time.” He says light-heartedly. He needs Roy to let this one go. _Especially right now_.

 

“Please,” Roy scoffs, trying and failing to toss his head because evidently he’s already forgotten it’s basically immobilized. “If I were waiting for you I wouldn’t be here.” There’s more than a simple truth to that, but Jason can’t see beyond it.

 

“So, what?” he asks instead, keeping it light. “You figured it’d be better to come after me like a love-sick _stalker_?”

 

“Man, really? A stalker? This is your fault.” Roy whines. Jason feels some of the tension lining his spine carefully ease up. He thinks it might be too optimistic to label it relief.

 

“Enlighten me.” He mutters crossly. The venom isn’t actually for Roy, who seems to be cooperating with him. He’s been steadily cutting wires while they chatted and the one in danger of twisting Roy’s knee is thicker than Jason remembered.

 

“ _It’s been a month.”_ Like the fucking answers to the universe, that’s how important that statement sounds.

 

Jason’s never really given a damn about the universe. Now would probably be a horrible time to start. The wire snaps open with a sharp _twang_ and slaps his wrist as it falls to the floor leaving a red welt in its wake. He’s about to remind Roy not to move when the guy sighs in relief and does the equivalent of a slump, hissing at the tightening to the wires coiled around his arms.

 

He bites back his concern and a snarl that will put Roy on edge and works his way up the archer’s body. (He’s a little proud, that only a very tiny part of him he hasn’t been able to shut off since the last time he’d seen Roy laments the fact that this isn’t actual bondage and they’re not horizontal. On Jason’s bed.)

 

“Okay, honestly,” he says abruptly, “I do not have time for this shit. Don’t squirm. I’m going to get you out and then you’re going to leave.”               

 

“I’m not fucking _leaving_ Jason.”

 

“ _Fine_ ,” Jason growls. “ _I’ll_ leave. Fucking Christ,” Roy’s hand twists – it really shouldn’t, what the actual fuck – and makes a grab for Jason’s wrist. He doesn’t quite make it, so really he’s holding awkwardly on to some of Jason’s fingers. If Jason pulled the grip would be lost. It might sprain Roy’s wrist though. It would definitely hurt. He glares at the red head instead, because the whole point of leaving was so he _wouldn’t_ hurt the dumbass and feels everything in him freeze at the too-serious gaze leveled straight on him.

 

“I’m not _leaving_ Jason.” He says again, quiet (not very much like Roy, most days) and heartfelt (like Roy always seems to be).

 

_It hurts to hear_ , he realizes. Jason really doesn’t feel like making a liar out of anyone these days, (except maybe himself).

 

“You don’t have to leave to not follow,” he says numbly. Roy, apparently, doesn’t have a response for that and after a few moments of tense silence Jason starts cutting him free again. He has to be methodical and careful about it, because if he cuts them in the wrong order the wires are designed to strain on their captive painfully, or fall and pull something in the wrong direction. He designed these ones to break bones and dislocate shoulders through nothing other than gravity and placement, mostly because he was alone and didn’t have to worry about _stupid red headed idiot archers_ setting off his shit.

 

“Three weeks,” Roy says quietly. Jason pauses, breathes deep, cuts another wire. “I waited for three weeks before I realized what you were doing. Called myself an idiot for letting you _disappear_. I thought you just needed to get your head clear. You haven’t been thinking at all about it, have you?”

 

_Of course I have,_ Jason thinks. _Every night I see you, and every morning I shut my eyes and feel you, and then I open my eyes and remember her_. He thinks it and cuts another wire.

 

Says, “It only took you two weeks to find me?” There’s an honest touch of wonder in his tone; he can hear it and curses himself for not paying more attention.

 

“Yeah well, maybe your heart wasn’t into running away from me in the same way that your head was.”

 

“If this conversation keeps going I’m going to leave you here.” Roy pauses, smirks tiredly.

 

“I’ll struggle.” He promises. _Yeah_ , Jason thinks – knows, because Roy is an idiot. “Jason, please man, you don’t have to say yes to come back. I’m worried.”

 

“What, you can’t sleep without me?” he asks, curses himself for it not even a full second later at the glint in Roy’s eyes like he _knows_. (Of course he knows; this was part of the fucking problem.) It’s his fucking luck that he’s already cut the last wire and Roy’s hands are on his shoulders, light and easy instead of heavy and trapping.

 

There’s a smile on his face that’s physically painful to look at and his voice is grim when he says, “Don’t project. You don’t have to come back for your sake; you have to come back for mine. It’s exhausting chasing after you. We can’t take it.”

 

_We_ , because that was another part of the problem, having the occasional reminder that it’s not just him Jason is screwing with, it’s Roy and _her_ too. “I waste too much time worrying – we settled into a routine. We got all domestic and shit and without you there it’s jarring, Jay.”

 

“This is starting to feel like a trap.” Jason says, quiet and cold like he _knows_ he can be. Roy doesn’t look hurt, or like he’s been slapped like he usually does when Jason shuts down and Jason doesn’t know if that’s a sign of improvement or if it’s more proof that he’s lost the last ones he trusts to watch his back.

 

Then Roy looks down and sees the blood that’s begun dripping through Jason’s glove.

 

Then Jason sees the anger he’s been expecting since his alarms were tripped.


	2. Identify

Roy and Jason get angry in different ways. Jason will never, _ever_ , admit this but occasionally, when Jason can see straight and in colors other than red or sickly shades of green and can hear voices that aren’t just in his own head giving him tips on the easiest ways to break things, he can acknowledge that he wishes he could get angry like Roy.

Jason’s anger is like the fire that burned him and the smoke that choked him and the shrapnel that pierced and sliced through him. He doesn’t spare chances or thoughts for his targets, there’s no empathy wasted on the scum foolish enough to land on the Red Hood’s path. There are degrees to his anger like there are degrees of burn damage – Jason can step aside to make room for people he thinks, people who prove, they’ve got more of a stake and claim to a target than he does. He’s done it before; he’ll do it again. He’ll leave his mark no matter what, but contrary to popular belief he doesn’t always think he has to leave the _biggest_ mark.

More importantly, Jason’s anger can’t just be turned off. Like a bomb, he’s a constant danger just by existing and there’s a very large number of ways to make him go _boom_ but no one’s quite figured out how to disarm him. _Jason_ hasn’t figured out how to disarm himself. (He doesn’t like to hear the tiny voice, terrifyingly soothing and understanding, that says to him: he’s afraid that without anger there won’t be anything left.) There are a few people that can reset the timer, bring that number back up from zero, but most people just do the only thing they can – containment. Lessen the blast radius, evacuate the area, stand guard, prep for clean-up.

Roy isn’t like that. His anger is precision sharp. Patient isn’t quite right, none of them are properly patient and they don’t bide their time when they’re angry, but if Jason is an explosion in generally the right place Roy is the sniper’s bullet that gets one chance – heart or head. The biggest collateral Roy has is nicking an artery, so the source bleeds out in a way he hadn’t intended. All of his energy goes into one single strike, and after that he steps back and analyzes to decide if he needs to stay angry and build up that energy again or if the mark is down and he can go back to cheesy lines and a food joint and hey, you coming, or are you really gonna leave me to celebrate and then possibly cry into the floor alone.

Jason tries not to let Roy get to that point.

He used to, anyway. It’s been a month. He doesn’t pretend to know all of what Kori and Roy do together. He doesn’t really want to know. He feels guilty enough about the thoughts in his head, becoming a voyeur is not on his To-Do List.

_The point_ , Jason thinks as Roy shoves him onto a stool and rummages through his things, is that Roy doesn’t stay angry. He can switch it off, redirect it, and while Jason has a brand new bruise on his face courtesy Roy’s clenched fist, if Jason were angry there’s a chance he wouldn’t be capable of constructing the proper sentences Roy is - clipped voice or not. He knows he wouldn’t trust himself to try and fix anything when he’s as angry as Roy sounds.

“I don’t need a goddamn _bandage_. Would you quit slamming doors?” he says when Roy’s curses have died away to a soft stream of threats Jason can’t actually hear. Roy slams a cupboard door hard enough that it misses the latch and swings open to slam into another cupboard and then swings shut. The latch barely catches in time. There’s a scratch in the wood of the second cupboard door and it’d been hit so hard that it’s slowly falling open. Jason glares at Roy spitefully because he’s smirking viciously satisfied but Roy isn’t paying attention to him. He’s reaching into the scratched cupboard and pulling out a fresh wrap of bandages and Jason’s mildly surprised because he didn’t actually know he had those.

“Your hands.”

“Are sexy and I know it,” Jason murmurs.

They’re not; actually, they’re rough and calloused and have tiny scratches on the palms and bruises along forever-cracked knuckles and right now have dark red older blood mixing with brighter red fresh blood sliding down and pooling in the palm of one hand and dripping down the fingers of the other. There’s a bloodied washcloth on the table that’s almost as soaked as his hands. It’s been less than five minutes since Roy punched him.

“How much does it hurt?” Roy asks quietly. There’s another wash cloth in his hands gently swiping at the blood and Jason isn’t quite sure when that happened. He’s also not sure where the gauze that’s being wrapped around his hands came from.

“It doesn’t.” He answers truthfully. Roy freezes, stares up at him neutrally, presses down hard and steady in a way Jason knows is supposed to help stop blood flow. He thinks maybe he read somewhere that it should hurt.

“That doesn’t hurt either?” Roy asks. He doesn’t sound clinical, or concerned, so Jason’s hackles don’t rise in offense but he doesn’t sound his usual brand of sarcastic either, so Jason only shakes his head and furrows his brow.

“Is it s’posed to?” Jason mumbles. Roy shrugs noncommittally.

“I’m pressing down on bruises and open wounds. When did you stop feeling pain?” Jason doesn’t answer because he hasn’t yet. He shrugs in lieu of words so that Roy won’t think he’s being ignored and turn his anger back on.

He’s huffy like that.

“When was the last time you felt the physical pain of a job?” Roy asks, apparently reading minds or something.

“One week and four days after I left,” he answers honestly because it’s not like Roy can do anything about that.

“I have before,” Roy says absently and he’s not looking at Jason but Jason isn’t exactly out of his line of sight either. It’s true; Jason occasionally just doesn’t feel physical pain. Roy’s the only one who knows, because he’d tracked Jason down and found a very long glass from a beer bottle sticking through Jason’s arm while he was washing dishes. He hadn’t felt pain for two months that time.

It’s really fucking dangerous, as habits and things that occasionally happen to Jason go. Pain is the brain’s way of saying – hey, that hurts. It’s bad. Fix it. Jason has been known to get into lethal fights. It’s far rarer for him to be involved in a controlled exercise. See: anger akin to bomb.

So, yeah, not feeling pain was a problem and Jason knew that, mentally. He just couldn’t bring himself to care. Roy had stuck with him, lived in his space and talked incessantly about everything and anything and watched Jason with the same intensity that Alfred had once upon a time, and the pain had trickled in gradually between horrible movies and burnt popcorn and a little civilization. That was the first time Jason had slept in Roy’s presence. Despite his promises, it hadn’t been the last either.

“I’m not sure forcing me to watch cheap horror flicks counts as fixing faulty pain receptors.” Roy doesn’t pause in his work and Jason knows he’s being excruciatingly gentle. He lets Jason jerk his hands back in a flinch. He does look up though, and there’s something dark in his eyes when he sighs and stands back up.

“You can answer one of two questions: When was the last time you actually slept, or are you physically hurt anywhere else.” Jason twitches, opens his mouth to answer, then thinks better of it and shakes his head.

“I think it’s just the hands,” he says. Roy nods, like he was expecting that answer (of course he was they’ve done this dance before) and looks around the room a little hopelessly.

“Where’ve you been sleeping?” Jason hesitates because he’s pretty sure Roy is going to want to be able to reach him and Jason knows that isn’t going to be possible from where he’s chosen to pass out since he reacquired this place. He can still see the anger that Roy redirected towards being helpful simmering in blue eyes though, and as much as he genuinely does not care that Roy is apparently angry at him he doesn’t actually want to get punched again either. So he stands up and leads Roy to the farthest corner where there’s a hidden panel that he fumbles with because his hands are harder to coordinate and apparently thicker than they were twenty minutes ago.

The wall slides half-way up and then jerks to the side and there’s just enough room that Jason can shimmy into it and climb up one of the wall supports to rest in a space he’d hollowed out when he first found this place. He used to store his biggest weapons there. They’ve since found other hiding places and he has a tiny pillow and an old jacket he doesn’t remember getting. There are little yellow arrows stitched onto the sleeves and even though he knows Roy can’t see it from outside he pulls the sleeves inside out and throws it over his shoulders in a tiny cocoon as he settles in.

He sees the last traces of a surprisingly pained expression being wiped from Roy’s face and worries for a moment that maybe Roy hadn’t chased him here to be a nuisance and was actually in trouble before Roy nods decisively and grabs his own arrows (Jason can tell at a glance they’re the most dangerous ones Roy owns and is both pleased that he’s apparently treating life relatively seriously and concerned that he seems to find them necessary) and bow and settles in next to the walls opening, back pressed into the corner and sliding down in an easy perch like he’s prepped for a long night of minimal movement and high alert.

“You can shut and open that from inside, right?” Jason scoffs and doesn’t answer, something in him easing just a bit at the tiny grin Roy sports. “Lock it up. I’ll take watch. You close your eyes and pretend to sleep or whatever.”

“I’m not going to sleep.” Roy nods, like he believes Jason.

“Stay awake. I need to know if you soak through those bandages.” Jason scowls, because those are two contradicting orders he’s given in less than a minute and also, he doesn’t take orders from Roy before shutting the wall and pressing his head close so he can feel and hear any odd vibrations. He hasn’t slept in close to three days and he knows he’s nearing the end of his cycle of Sleep, Don’t Sleep, and needs to Sleep again. The air has kicked in like it’s supposed to, and there’s a soft cool breeze gently moving over him so he closes his eyes and concentrates on the sounds he can make out.

He tells himself he’s going to have to cut the portion of Sleep in his cycle down. Then he sleeps.

* * *

  _~'~,~'~_

* * *

Jason, Roy knows, has never been good at following a strict order. He prefers options, or the illusion of them. Roy also knows that Jason is exhausted and in pain and is balancing the line between pushing everyone away and obsessively stalking the last few ties to Earth he thinks he’s got. Jason’s also confused, and doesn’t know how to deal with people like, at all, but hasn’t reached the point where he finds them all unbearable yet. Roy wouldn’t have needed two weeks to find him if Jason had reached that point. He’d have needed, maybe, two hours.

He sighs as he completes his sixth circuit around the room in two hours and settles back in against the corner he’d shown Jason he’d stay in, eyes searching for anything other than what he’d already left out of place and trying not to conjure images of dark eyes and a gaunt face.

_Do not apologize for loving him. Do not apologize for revealing that you care. Do not hide what you feel. He does enough of that on his own. If you must apologize for something, make it for allowing him to wander away without fighting for him. I expect you both back by next week._

The words bring a reluctant grin to Roy’s face and he tries not to laugh or let his breathing change too rapidly. He really does love Kori. Of course she’d be absolutely right on what to do with Jason. Besides, Roy had never been particularly good at pretending he was sorry when he wasn’t, and there wasn’t a single part of him that regretted kissing Jason. Not before, when he’d been jittery and then hands on and so desperate it made Roy’s heart lurch and his throat tighten just thinking about it or after when he’d pulled back with a sharp gasp and shaking limbs and looking terrified and so damn wistful because he’d already resigned himself to having just that kiss before he made a light joke, cut Roy off with a shaky smack to the head, and disappeared asking for some time.

He hadn’t been angry so much as exasperated when Jason had come in, looking tired and annoyed and sardonic because he wasn’t happy enough to be amused and not surprised because he was paranoid enough that right now there wasn’t anything that could actually _surprise_ Jason Todd. He’d been hanging for roughly half an hour and had seriously considered dozing off despite the pain he knew he’d get in his neck for it when Jason had finally walked through the door. It had been another solid five minutes of the other just staring at him before Roy realized the dark circles weren’t from someone’s fists and were in fact signs of sleep deprivation and that Jason probably thought he’d been hallucinating Roy in the middle of his room – tied up or not.

His phone beeps at him and he waits until it’s time for another circuit before he answers it. Jason has his pattern internalized by now, and it wouldn’t do to wake the other or get him concerned for a phone call. He doesn’t look before he flips it open because there’s only one person right now that’s going to contact him.

“Finally,” Kori mutters and Roy’s grin widens. He’s careful not to slow his pace but he makes his step size smaller, just in case. “You found him.”

“I can’t talk for long. He may or may not have fallen asleep. Are you okay, Kori?” because if he’s not asleep at least Jason can confirm that Roy probably isn’t involved in some convoluted plot that will end in Jason drugged and on a table or in an inconvenient fist-fight somewhere.

“Fine,” she answers. “Are you bringing back something sweet?” Roy considers Jason, sleep deprived and hurting so badly in his heart and head that physical pain is just another nuisance, and sighs.

“It’s a little bitter, I think. Anyway, I’m going to have to do some prep work. Favors here and there, you know how it is.” Kori laughs, easy and affectionate in ways Jason doesn’t think he can be anymore, and Roy swallows down the sudden anxiousness rising in him.

“I’ll make it look nice. You can worry about the taste.” Kori pauses, hums thoughtfully, and Roy can hear the smile in her voice when she says, “Jason has his work cut out for him now that we have all of the ingredients.”

“Maybe he should worry about the taste. I’ll do the mixing and mashing, instead.”

“So you apologized after all,” Kori asks. She sounds resigned and instead of disapproving, and Roy scowls on principle.

“No, I punched him in the face because he was being an _idiot_. He didn’t punch me back so I bandaged up his hands and sent him to his hole.”

“Well, at least you used his language,” Kori says in her most placid voice. Roy counts it as a victory and says his goodbyes when he makes it back to his corner, checking the room with his eyes one last time before sliding down again with only a spare glance to Jason’s wall. He’s careful not to make too many construction plans in his head because there’s a chance that he’s not going to bring Jason back by the end of the week and if that happens Kori will move in here and he won’t have to waste a lot of effort planning little holes in walls because they’ll already exist.

He spends the rest of his night steadfastly not worrying about how easy it was to order Jason around and instead braces himself for tomorrow because it was probably gonna suck.

He thinks maybe cinnamon rolls would be good. Something sweet to keep Jason’s bitter at bay. Also, off balance. Because Jason off balance was easy to deal with… and adorable.


	3. Disarm

Jason wakes up to the distinct smell of fresh pastries and the faint sound of cursing drifting in through the fake wall. There’s nothing particularly alarming about it, and he recognizes the voice as Roy’s and immediately recalls the guy’s slightly inconvenient arrival so he falls out of his tense state on reflex and stumbles out of the makeshift bed with a tired yawn and a heavy feeling settling around his shoulders and making his limbs feel like lead.

Roy’s over by the designated kitchen with a triumphant grin on his face and a smudge of something white on his cheek that’s too pasty to be flour but not dripping like it’s batter and he peers curiously at it until his brain fuzzily tells him _icing_ and then he’s flopping forward on to the counter chair and pillowing his head in his arms.

“That,” Roy says, sounding far too coherent and happy for someone who likely hasn’t slept, “is not the proper reaction to cinnamon rolls in the morning.”

“It is if I don’t want cinnamon rolls,” Jason grumbles, looking up sharply at the loud gasp and searching frantically before he realizes Roy is staring at _him_ in stricken horror.

“ _Slander and lies_ ,” Roy hisses through clenched teeth, eyes narrowed. “You want it and you’ll love it you ungrateful brat.”

“Man, really?” Jason grunts, peering up at the redhead’s serious face for a long moment before heaving a put upon sigh and making grabby hands. “Whatever, wipe your face you’ve got _stuff_ on it. Also, I’m doing this under duress.”

Roy huffs and says something that Jason would swear was _I’ll show you duress_ but then there’s a cinnamon roll being put in front of him that’s the size of his _face_ so he doesn’t actually get around to calling Roy on it because he’s a little too busy staring at the Monstrous Treat from Hell.

He’s positive he doesn’t have the stomach for this.

He knows he doesn’t have the teeth for it.

He looks up to Roy in time to see him run a paper towel over the entirety of his face and manage to smear the icing closer to his lips but not actually get rid of any of it. There’s a tiny grin on Roy’s face and he’s pretty sure he’s being stared expectantly at but he doesn’t actually care about that because he’s staring at the tiny smear of icing on _Roy’s face_ and.

_I want to lick it._

…

 _Fuck_.

“Okay, nope, we’re done. This is done. I’m going to stand up and walk away.” He gets halfway to the door before he hears the crash of running footsteps and he throws himself to the side mostly to avoid getting his face smashed against the floor – he’d managed to survive an entire recreational jaunt through the crime-filled alleys of this city without marking up his face he wasn’t letting _Roy Harper_ get away with bruising it (more). He didn’t get far enough away though, because his wrist was caught in a very firm grip and then Roy basically swung around him to crash tackle him to the floor, sitting firmly on his chest and glaring down at him.

“Calm down,” Roy says quietly and Jason grunts at him because.

“Get off.”

“Calm down,” Roy says again, and the glare on his face lessens some and that’s not good because the lines of Roy’s face soften then and there’s still icing on his face and.

“Jason,” Roy leans closer, eyes warm and sad but that doesn’t mean shit because Roy doesn’t let the things he doesn’t necessarily like doing stop him from actually _doing it_. “Calm down.”

“ _I can’t_ ,” Jason says and _fuck_ he hadn’t meant to say that. He shouldn’t have said anything, he needs to fix it but the words won’t come and his throat is – is starting to hurt and what the fuck if anything should hurt it should be his _hands_.

There’s a steady pressure on his chest and it takes him a while but when he looks down Roy is resting against his chest and there are thumbs digging gently into his shoulders – hard enough to feel but light enough to register and if Jason arches and twists just a bit he could lick that little bit of icing that’s still on Roy’s cheek.

The thought makes him shudder and twitch and Roy looks up sharply, that hint of something stressed and dark that Jason had seen last night darkening bright blue eyes.

“It’s okay, Jay,” he says.

“It’s not!” Jason snapped, feeling like a little kid and _hating it_. He can feel the panic rise up in him, making his stomach turn and his head dizzy and his mouth dry. There’s something clawing away at him, _in him_ and it’s not new because Jason has been feeling this since he left, since before then, but this is the first time it’s ever tried to lash out. And it’s not going to stay a poisonous thought in Jason’s head, this time. He knows it, can feel it in the thick haze settling under his skin, the twisted sneer that’s trying to pull his lips up. He’s never actually wanted to direct this at anyone, never wanted to be a part of it, have it be a part of _him_ , but he slips and every time it’s just another piece lost. “It’s not, Roy.”

The words are on repeat, heavy and slow to come because it’s burrowed under his skin and he doesn’t know what it’s going to say but he can’t hold back and Roy _doesn’t need this_. Doesn’t deserve Jason snapping at him because he’s not strong enough, and Jason is a lot of things but he’s never really been the guy to begrudge someone else for having initiative. When he first left it was easy to ignore, because it tried to make him hate Kori and that would never happen. He couldn’t hate her for taking what he hadn’t, would never hate Roy for attaining something perfect and precious. He only had that feeling for himself.

“It’s not, Roy, because this isn’t,”

“This isn’t what,” Roy demanded, cutting Jason off. “This isn’t right?”

“This isn’t a game!” Jason snapped.

“You think I don’t know that?” Roy snarled back, leaning closer until all Jason could see was furious blue eyes and a smattering of freckles. “You think I kissed you to fuck with your head, Jay? There are easier fucking ways to do that, and they all actually involved a hell of a lot less potential for bodily harm.”

“You might’ve kissed me to fuck with Kori’s.”

The slap is cool against his cheek and he relishes in the hot burn because it’s something that didn’t come from inside him. It cools the roiling heat in his gut and he focuses in time to fully feel the hard push of knuckles digging into his cheek when Roy punches him. He waits for another hit, relaxed and numb and not quite at ease but floating away from the headache and the voices the have been echoing in his head for days – the thoughts he’s never been able to stop finally quiet for just a moment.

He doesn’t notice when Roy lifts him up and drags him to the little side room with the thin mattress he’d set up but hadn’t been able to sleep on, doesn’t so much as twitch when he’s pulled into warm arms that should hurt and burn but don’t – haven’t – won’t hurt him like everything else has, _will_. He breathes deep and steady, easy save for a few soft whines because he shouldn’t be here and there’s a part of him that’s roiling against this with all of its ferocity, desperate to break out and strike against the cage holding him, not hard and unyielding but gentle and molding to his body.

Jason wants to hate Roy’s constancy. He wants to hate that he’s depended on Roy and Kori – solely on them without any back-up plan or hidden toys behind it, but he knows that’s not what this is. He afraid, shaking and terrified, because he’s becoming so needy he doesn’t know that he’ll function without it.

(He won’t, actually, because he’s been gone one month and it only took two days for the voice to start hissing, turn on Jason when it couldn’t provide a cynical commentary on the people around him. He’d started badly the first time he’d heard it – after that incident with Roy, he’d felt it fade away and he’d thought it was gone.)

Roy and Kori, probably more Roy than Kori, taking him in isn’t so surprising to him. It makes sense in the same way that them leaving him is basically a foregone conclusion.

“What happens to you when you’re alone?” Roy asks, voice quiet and steady, hard from an anger that Jason really does deserve but not unforgivingly rigid like everyone else’s.

“I go kick – ”

“I don’t care what you do.” Roy says, overriding the confident tone Jason dredges up for times like this, when he loses control. “I care about what happens to you. Day One, Two, maybe even that first week was just a freak-out. I get that. I sprung it on you. I’m sorry, I should have found a better way but I don’t regret that and _you kissed me back_. That means something, Jason, especially when it’s you because there was a knife in your hand and you could have punched me or stabbed me but you didn’t. You’ve been sitting on this for a month, and it’s gotten out of control. The last time this happened, it was the same spiral.” The last time Jason felt like this (didn’t feel like this?) he’d been washing dishes with a glass bottle sticking out of his arm. Jason’s never been sure if it was a good or bad thing Roy was there for it.

“I’m not blind and I’m not stupid, Jason.” Jason winces, because he’s pretty sure he knows that better than most of the superhero community – and it certainly feels like it most days, watching Roy build and destroy with general childlike abandon. “You’ve fallen into a pattern, and it gets worse when you’re alone. _This happens_ when you’re alone.”

“I’m sick,” Jason whispers, curling tight into Roy’s chest and he realizes that he’s being hugged; that’s why there are arms around him and Roy’s legs are spread to either side and he’s propped against the wall. Jason is being hugged by Roy but they’re not moving and neither is particularly hurt so he doesn’t _understand_. Roy holds him tighter, and the firm support along his back and shoulders makes some of the whirling thoughts slow down, just enough that he can focus on Roy’s voice.

“You’re not sick. You’re hurt and confused. You’re angry and you’ve got issues and you’ve taken in more people with more issues. Jay,” Roy sighed and kissed his head. Jason expected a twinge, of want or hurt or need but Roy was still holding him tightly and they weren’t moving so…so it was okay. Roy smiled crookedly, and he wasn’t hiding behind his bright mask anymore and Jason could see it, the voices and the sickness he saw in himself if he stared at a mirror or his reflection too long but it was different too. It was Roy’s hurt, not Jason’s, and he curled into the redhead just a little more.

“Am I supposed to apologize?” he asked. He’d do it. Anything to make that look go away, and it lightened some at his question, ease flowing down his shoulders and relaxing his muscles and Roy chuckled half-heartedly.

“You’re not supposed to do anything Jason. Just…shit, man, I don’t know – this is what Kori is for. Feel, I guess. I don’t want you to make a decision, and I don’t want you to say anything. I just want to know where you go when things spiral out of our control. I want to know what happens. You can’t keep doing this, Jay. There has to be another way than letting you just simmer man. Shit’s not healthy,” Roy says softly.

“I don’t want to stay here,” Jason admits quietly, brittle and so out of his depth he doesn’t even know what he must look like, sound like, to have Roy coddling him here. “Can we just…go back?” He almost says home, feels the words echo in his bones, but he’s not sure he wants to label it. He’d done that before. _Everyone_ knows how that turned out.

“You want to?” Roy asks, unsure but willing, always willing it seemed no matter how ridiculous or blatantly stupid.

“Yeah,” Jason says, and then, “I mean…we’re missing Kori.” Roy’s smile wasn’t one Jason had ever seen before, but it’s one thing he’ll never regret causing.


	4. Dismantle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Full disclosure, everything before this chapter was from two years ago. I didn't want to leave it as it was, but trying to get back into the swing of things to end this as also difficult. Hopefully, I managed to capture enough of the tone and feelings as I got back into the swing of things that's still satisfactory. If everyone just want to pretend chapter 3 is the actual end, I understand.

“I regret everything about this,” Jason announces. 

“Oh look,” Kori says airily, pinning him with a sharp look when his fingers twitch. “I don’t care.” Jason makes a face at her, and then frowns when Roy grabs his wrist and pulls him deeper into the room. “Why are you hurt?” 

“He’s clumsy,” Roy answers for him, grinning at the glare Jason pins on him. “He’s our awkward snapping turtle.”

“I hate… so much,” Jason grinds out tiredly. He doesn’t pull away though when Roy lifts up his hands and undoes the bandages, frowning a little at the cracked skin.

“Look on the bright side,” Roy chirps.

“No,” Jason mutters, swallowing when Kori leans over Roy’s shoulder to peer at his hands for herself.

“You didn’t break any fingers.”

Jason sighs, looking away from Roy’s grin and Kori’s curious frown to glance around the apartment. It hadn’t really changed much since he last saw it. Still small, cluttered with Roy’s things. There were more half-built machines and dismantled appliances than he remembered, and the microwave was new, but ultimately not much had changed at all.

He couldn’t tell if he was relieved or annoyed by that.

“Were you expecting something else?” Kori asks, drifting to stand by his shoulder while Roy fussed with his hands.

“I was sort of hoping you’d impose some martial law. Make the kid clean up after himself.”

“I had to send him on an errand,” Kori hums. “The other child missed his curfew.”

“Hah,” Jason huffs, glancing up at her. She looks amused, eyebrow arching expectantly.

And it’s – that’s not fair. She had to know. She _had_ to know why he’d left, the things he’d been doing and thinking. The way he’d – it wasn’t right.

“Jason?” Kori prompts, sitting across from him. She still looks expectant, waiting patiently for him and he knows this. This is familiar to him. This is what she does for him – _to him_ and he’d betrayed that without a thought. Like he didn’t care – as if he was _incapable_ of.

“I kissed Roy,” he admits numbly, refusing to look at the archer next to him.

“Did you? He was very insistent that he had kissed you,” she answers back, head tilting curiously.

“I,” he starts, grimacing a little. He very much does not want to get into the politics of kissing. “I should have pushed him away. I _meant_ to,” he starts, throat closing again. “The same way I pushed you away.” Looking away is hard, but that’s only because he’s braced for a punch he has no chance of living through if Kori’s set on killing him.

People can say what they will, but he’s never _not_ seen his death coming.

…Maybe it’s a bit dramatic, but hey – life’s a fucking stage and all that.

“Did you not enjoy it?”

“That’s not the-” he grinds his teeth, cutting off abruptly and pinching the bridge of his nose. It _was_ the point. He had enjoyed it. Roy kissing him – after the initial flinch and confusion, it had been – it had felt good. It had felt better than he’d expected, after everything else he’d been through. He hadn’t been hyper-aware of the body pressing against him, he hadn’t been thinking of all of the ways he could maim or injure or escape, all of his thoughts had just shut off completely.

It was terrifying. It was reckless. It was stupid. It was fucking _dangerous_. But it was also good. So good, like his skin didn’t occasionally crawl or feel overheated and like he didn’t have anything or anyone else to worry about. He could’ve stayed with Roy in that moment for-fucking-ever and it was a horrible, cowardly kind of truth.

His head had been the kind of empty that made him feel like he was _rested_. Roy Harper had given him that. But then he’d pulled away and it had gone and he was left with a crash of thoughts and realizations and he’d remembered that Roy wasn’t his. He’d felt disgusting, after that. Foolish and greedy.

“You believe that accepting Roy betrays me?” Kori demands, frowning hard at him. He starts to speak but she makes a sharp motion with her hand, cutting the air and Roy squeezes his shoulder gently. He shivers, holds still. “The only one you’ve betrayed is yourself.”

“Easy, Kori,” Roy says lightly, tugging on Jason’s other hand. He doesn’t look up, though, and the smile on his face is weirdly genuine and fond. Kori slants him an irritated look before softening, looking back up at Jason.

They don’t even have to use real words or looks to communicate anymore. Isn’t he supposed to be jealous about that? Her aggravated sigh pulls him out of it, and he doesn’t look away when she grabs his other hand.

“I do not care what the two of you do,” she says slowly, measured and forceful. “Do not deny yourself a good thing and use me as an excuse. It is a presumptuous and foolish thing to do and I will not tolerate it again.”

“What Kori means,” Roy says with a wince, trying not to grin as he looks up and tugs until Jason is glaring at him. “Is she’d rather you be with me and all of us, than be alone with none of us.”

“Neither of you are making sense,” Jason mutters flatly, shivering a bit and gritting his teeth when Roy gives him a pained look.

“Please don’t make me do the clinical thing,” he pleads.

“What?”

“If you’re refusing to have sex with Roy because of me, than have sex with Roy for me,” Kori says flatly. Jason – chokes, his heart thudding painfully in his chest as he leans back to look at both of them, Roy sighing softly but not looking surprised. Kori’s arms cross defensively. “It is not unheard of and the sight would not displease me.”

“I don’t… know what’s happening,” Jason admits.

“Kori is happening,” Roy answers with a kind of grim acceptance more suited to the fights that get really out of hand and when he has to talk Jason down from killing someone. The two of them have become offended by the tone kind of on principle. “Look, _Jason_ ,” Roy reaches out again, and Jason flinches back but doesn’t fight the pull, curling uneasily against Roy’s chest.

He feels unstable again, a steady warning beep in his head deceptively unobtrusive. He grimaces at the sound. It’s worse, honestly, because he knows no one else can hear it. It’s all in his fucked up head. Because of course it is.

“She doesn’t care that we kissed,” Roy says quietly, arms around him again.

“You look like you care,” Jason mutters. Kori arches an eyebrow and then shakes her head.

“I care that you disappeared for a month, and that Roy blamed himself, and that neither of you slept properly. I care that you were unsafe. I care that two people I know intimately well have denied themselves something wonderful purely because they believed I would be anything other than _glad_ that they shared themselves with each other.”

“Kori,” Roy’s grip tightens around him, and Jason can feel the archer shiver. “You’re doing that thing where you say uncomfortably intimate things again.” Kori levels them both with a flat, unimpressed look.

Jason makes a low noise, something in him… easing, a bit more.

“I don’t think she cares, Arsenal,” Jason mutters softly, wincing a bit at small ache in his wrists. Roy groans softly, and Jason tilts his head to the side before Roy’s head can even start to drop onto his shoulder, making room. There’s a nervous fluttering in his stomach when he feels Roy smile against the skin there, but Kori’s unimpressed look has changed to something approving, and he lets her take both of his hands and inspect his fingers.

“We have our own intimacy, Jason,” Kori reminds him, looking through his spread fingers to meet his eyes.

“Not like that,” he hedges quietly. Because they hadn’t been like that, not once, not ever. That wasn’t what it had been about, really, and the pair of them – she knew more about him collectively than most, he’d told her more than he’d ever told anyone else. Others he hadn’t had to tell, either because they’d been there or because they knew (they thought they knew) from someone else. Koriand’r knew him, though. She’d heard _him_.

“Only because it has never needed to be so,” Kori agrees, smiling faintly.

She didn’t need to know his body to know his mind. He swallows, and Roy’s arms tighten briefly around his waist, his grip shifting up to his shoulders before Jason can shift uncomfortably. He glanced back, and Roy’s – fucking _blushing_ , what the hell, but stubbornly meeting his eyes anyway with a too-sappy smile and a helpless little shrug.

“How do your hands feel?” Roy asks, and Jason….

“Ow,” he reports, surprised, flexing his fingers a little and grimacing at the pain that lances up his forearms in response. Harper looks fucking smug, like he knew.

_Then again_ , Jason thinks eying his hands critically, _didn’t he?_

Roy’s the only one Jason’s ever met that’s read his physical cues almost before Jason can make them, knows when and where and how to touch him in ways that don’t either make Jason want to punch him reflexively or make him feel nauseated later. He knows when and where and how to stand or crouch when he’s near Jason and when to talk and when to wait him out.

Even the other people who do have that knowledge have never had the patience with him to use it.

“Argh,” Roy groans, brows knitting and circling to face him, biting his lip and waving his hands out to his sides. “Can I just- you’re just, ugh,” he mutters.

“Eloquent,” Jason mutters, eying him carefully and looking toward Kori, who looks about as impatient with him as he feels confused with Roy. “Why are you still glaring at me?”

“If you bolt I’m letting Kori tie you to a chair,” Roy warns, grabbing his attention in time to kiss him again.

It’s about as expected as it was last time, but it’s impossibly better this time, and the buzzing under his skin goes still and he leans forward before he can think about stopping himself and it’s _better_ because there’s an arm around his waist and a hand on his shoulder and when Roy pulls back gently he realizes it’s _hers_ and then he’s between them but he’s not.

There’s no escape plan, from here. There never has been. He’s never needed one and hasn’t ever gotten around to making one anyway.

Doesn’t want one.

That should probably be the most terrifying thing about it, right? He can’t disarm himself, but Roy and Kori can _dismantle_ him as easy as breathing. Roy reading his body and Kori in his head and there’s no escaping something as permanently telling as that.

It should be worrying; he shouldn’t let anyone have that kind of a grip on him – not even for a moment. He’d _died_ for the last ones to even get close to having that kind of hold and it hadn’t been anywhere near as intimate as this, as irreversibly _knowing_ as this. He doesn’t have a reliable defense against them.

Except he’s not so sure he needs one. Because despite all of that he does know Kori, he can read Roy – almost painfully easy, for both of them. And if there’s anything he’ll ever be sure of it’s that they’d never dismantle _anything_ without putting it back together – maybe not the same, probably not perfect, but… they wouldn’t leave him broken.

They don’t have to have the same blast radius to be the same type of bomb.

They’d been shattered themselves too many times to ever tolerate it.

(He knows because he’s the same.)

And that - this - is okay.


End file.
